What is Causing the Upheaval in Cuba?
Anand
During the Coronavirus pandemic Anti-government protests have been witnessed in several parts of the world. Most of these protests were directed against the right-wing governments who have miserably failed in tackling the scourge of the pandemic. However, on July 11, 2021 the anti-government protests commenced in several parts of Cuba, a country ruled by a self-proclaimed Communist Party. The western imperialist media gave huge coverage to these protests which was not surprising. However, even the independent observers described that these protests were unprecedented in the 62 years of the Cuban revolution, even larger than the Maleconazo protest of 1994, that was controlled within hours. Therefore, it is important to understand the reasons behind these protests and what forces are leading them. Also, it is necessary to examine the role played by US imperialism in these protests.
The protests first broke out in San Antonio de los Baños, a city located less than 100 kilometers from the capital city of Havana. Soon it spread to several other cities and town including Havana. Subsequently the pro-government protestors also hit the streets in response to the call by the Cuban President Díaz-Canel to defend the revolution. Many incidents of violent clashes between the pro-government and anti-government protestors were reported from different parts of Cuba. It is undeniable that many of the anti-government protestors belonged to rabid counter-revolutionary organizations linked to US imperialist interests that were running intense social media campaigns, with a hashtag #SOSCuba, to manufacture an uprising against Cuban government taking advantage of the economic hardships and health emergency in the wake of increasing Covid cases in the days leading to the beginning of protests. These organizations went so far to call for a “humanitarian intervention” by foreign powers. The influences behind these counter revolutionary organizations could be easily discerned in the slogans raised by many of the demonstrators such as “Patria y Vida” (Homeland and Life), “Libertad” (Freedom). These slogans have been popularized by the right-wing opposition based in Miami, USA.
However, it is also true that majority of the anti-government protestors could not be linked to the counter-revolutionary organizations. Many of them were genuinely protesting against the deteriorating economic situation and the inability of the health infrastructure to handle the increasing cases of Covid. Even President Díaz-Canel had to acknowledge that there was a genuine element in the protest as they grew out of the real hardships faced by the people in the middle of a pandemic. Therefore, not all protestors could be clubbed as a homogenous mass consisting of counter-revolutionaries acting at the behest of US imperialism.
The Coronavirus pandemic has devastated the Cuban economy which grew by only 1 percent in 2020. Tourism, the mainstay of Cuban economy, is in shambles as the number of tourists visiting the island nation has nosedived in the wake of the pandemic. The number of tourists visiting Cuba plummeted to the extent of 75 percent as compared to 2019. Apart from the unemployment caused by this crisis, Cuba is also facing the shortage of foreign exchange reserve to pay for its huge import bills. The dependence on imports could be gauged by the fact that Cuba has to import around 80 percent of its food and other basic necessities from other countries. Pandemic has also compelled the country to raise expenditure on healthcare which is exacerbating the crisis. All this has created a situation of extreme shortage of commodities needed for survival such as food and medicines. Long queues could be seen in front of bakery shops, grocery shops and medical stores in Cuban cities and towns. The prices of public utilities have skyrocketed during the period of pandemic as the government is compelled to withdraw subsidies. Further, the fall in the remittances into Cuba due to global economic crisis has also contributed to deteriorating the economic situation.
The impact of pandemic has been amplified by the inhuman policy of blockade imposed by United States. It is to be noted that from last six decades the successive governments of US have continued the inhuman policy of blockade which prevents American businesses and businesses with commercial activities in the United States from conducting trade with Cuban interests. Also, there are severe travel restrictions imposed in United States with regard to visiting Cuba. It is the most enduring blockade in modern history. Previous US President Donald Trump not just reversed some of the relaxations made by his predecessor Barack Obama but he also made this blockade even more stringent by imposing 240 new sanctions against Cuba which includes activating Chapter III of the Helms-Burton Act that allows claims against companies dealing with Cuban companies which use property nationalized by the revolution. Even though current US President Joe Biden had promised to relax these sanctions during his election campaigns, his attitude towards Cuba after assuming the office of president and particularly after the recent protests makes it clear that he does not have any such plans in near future. In fact, Biden administration has imposed new sanctions on Cuba in the aftermath of the recent protests. This, despite the fact that on 23rd June 2021, 184 countries in the United Nations General Assembly had voted in favour of a resolution demanding the end of the US economic blockade.
This is the immediate backdrop of the anti-government demonstrations in Cuba. However, we must also probe why the situation has reached the crisis point and what are historical reasons behind it. For that we will have to briefly look at the history of Cuban revolution and its peculiarity.
Brief History of Cuban Revolution
Cuba was a Spanish colony until the close of 19th century. In 1898 under the leadership of revolutionaries like Jose Marti, it freed itself from the yoke of Spanish colonialism, but only to come into the grip of US imperialism as it became US’s neo-colony. Thus begins the process of invasion and occupation of Cuba by the US which had been trying to increase its influence in Cuba since the Monroe presidency in 1820s. This subordination of Cuba was enforced through infamous Platt Amendment which provided the legal sanction to the US intervention in Cuba. Sugar was the mainstay of Cuban economy even at that time. The peasants and workers were barely surviving in the face of inhuman existence. The condition of women was miserable which is indicated with the fact that before the revolution, there were hundreds of brothels in capital city of Havana alone. The US capital owned the majority of Cuban sugar production. Besides, the American monopoly companies came to control all the leading sector of Cuban economy such as land, mines, banking, railways and foreign trade. Successive governments in Cuba allowed the US to dominate the country economically and militarily.
Nevertheless, the US domination of Cuba was not left unchallenged. The nascent working class of Cuba, despite being small, gave repeated challenge to the autocratic and puppet regimes of Cuba. In 1933 there was a massive strike of bus drivers which soon turned into a widespread uprising of workers, peasants and students against the repressive regime of Gerrado Machado who incidentally was ex-director of General Electric in Cuba. This spontaneous uprising which led to the downfall of Machado’s government in fact articulated the discontent of the masses against the autocratic rulers and their imperialist masters. After this uprising the Cuban Communist Party (CCP), which was formed in 1925, started to spread its influence among the working class. However, it could not capture power because of its opportunism and ideological bankruptcy which was evident in its alliance with the brutal dictator Batista in the name of anti-fascist front and that too at a time when Batista’s regime was repressing the democratic uprisings of workers, peasants and students.
At the time when the CCP was collaborating with Batista, various petit-bourgeois organizations such as The Partido Ortodoxo and Directorio Revolutionario which consisted of disgruntled urban middle class, students and peasants were giving stiff resistance to the dictatorial regime of Batista. It was from this background that the leadership of the Cuban revolution emerged. It must be noted that they did not have a vision of creating a socialist society to start with; rather they aspired to build a society which is free from the US intervention which was to adopt the path of independent national development. It was The Partido Ortodoxo which had organized the famous attack on Moncada army barracks on 26 July 1953. Fidel Castro’s famous speech History will Absolve Me was delivered during the trial of Moncada attack in which he called for agrarian reforms, lowering rents and imposing restrictions on US capital.
After the Moncada attack, Castro was imprisoned, but was released in 1954 on amnesty. After the release, Castro went to Mexico where he organized a guerilla group consisting of 82 members that landed in Cuba by motorboat Granma in late 1956. This motorboat was bombarded by the Batista’s forces and only 20 members of Castro’s group survived which included Che Guevara and Raul Castro. They went on to establish Guerilla front in Sierra Maestra mountains. Castro’s technique of Guerilla struggle did not rely on the mobilization of working classes even though the latter were also organizing the general strikes against Batista regime. By the end of 1958, Batista’s regime fell and the 26th July movement led by radical students, professionals and some peasants assumed power in January 1959. The collapse of Batista’s regime was so sudden because it did not have any social support base in Cuban society. Even the majority of bourgeoisie detested the military dictatorship and wanted to end it. The 1959 revolution enjoyed widespread popularity and support by most of the Cubans.
Even in the initial days after the revolution, Castro did not have any plan to build a socialist society. In a speech delivered on 21st May 1959 he had openly declared that “our revolution is neither capitalist nor communist”. He aimed at diversifying the Cuban economy and to reduce the dependence on US. However, the international circumstances of cold war and local compulsion to stabilize the economy pushed him towards embracing Soviet Union. The land reform that was being carried out by the revolutionary regime was resisted both by the landlords in Cuba as well as US imperialism. The US companies such as Texaco, Shell and Esso refused to refine the crude oil supplied by USSR to Cuba. This was followed by the confiscation of the properties of US multinational companies. In response US began to impose trade sanctions on Cuba. Under these circumstances, Cuba began to inch closer towards USSR.
The US action against Cuba was not confined to the arena of trade and commerce. It also took the form of military invasion. In April 1961, US carried out the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion which coincided with counter-revolutionary uprising led by extreme right-wing elements and supported by the US. The imperialists and their lackeys suffered a humiliating defeat in their sinister attempt to nip the Cuban revolution in the bud. It was after this invasion that Castro announced the socialist character of Cuban revolution and declared himself to be a Marxist-Leninist. It was the time when the Great debate was underway in the international communist movement. In 1963, the movement was split into two factions. The revolutionary regime of Cuba under the leadership of Fidel Castro chose the side of the revisionist Soviet Union rather than the revolutionary China. This ideological compromise ensured that Cuba decidedly moved into the camp of social imperialism of the Soviet Union which incidentally treated Cuba as a pawn in the cold war against US imperialism by taking advantage of its geo-strategic location as evident during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
With the passage of time, Cuba became more and more dependent on the Soviet Union and the vision of Castro and Che of making a diversified and self-reliant economy remained a pipedream even though some serious attempts were made in the initial years of revolution towards socialization, collectivization, nationalization and diversified industrial development. Soviet Union and Cuba signed a contract which guaranteed that the former would purchase sugar from Cuba which was struggling to pay its burgeoning import bills. It also ensured that the Cuban import would almost exclusively come from Soviet bloc countries. It needs to be mentioned here that the revolutionary leadership of Cuba did carry out novel experiments in education and public healthcare thereby creating a world-class education and healthcare system which remains inspiring till this day.
Ideologically, Fidel Castro followed the Khrushchevite revisionist principle of ‘three peaceful’ and he went on to wholeheartedly defend Soviet policies on international fora including the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. It must be mentioned though that Che Guevara differed with Castro on his avowal of peaceful coexistence and was in favour of waging a perpetual struggle against imperialism. Che had left Cuba in 1965 and was murdered in 1967 by US imperialism in Bolivia where he was leading a Guerilla war, though Che himself was not a Marxist-Leninist in terms of ideological position, nor was he a mass-liner.
Cuba after the Collapse of the Soviet Union
It was a direct outcome of the excessive dependence of Cuba on the Soviet Union that when the latter began to disintegrate in late 1980s, the Cuban revolution found itself in a situation of existential crisis. At the time of Soviet Union’s disintegration, about two-third of Cuba’s exports was sent to the Soviet bloc countries. In order to weather this storm, Castro announced the policy of ‘Special Period in Peacetime’ under which Cuban external trade was sought to be diversified and the process of integrating Cuban economy with the global economy was initiated. To achieve these objectives, the government monopoly over external trade was removed and the foreign companies were allowed to invest in the country. The Constitution of Cuba was amended to permit the transfer of state property to joint ventures with foreign partners. Free Trade zones were formed as per the 1995 foreign investment law to promote foreign investment. The emphasis was given on promoting tourism. All these measures led to huge inflow of foreign investment from different parts of world not just in tourism sector but also in nickel industry and mining, telecom, construction and utilities sector.
Besides promoting foreign investment, the market forces were unleashed in the domestic economy. Privatization and self-employment were promoted. In the name of enhancing efficiency, many of the earlier steps for collectivization, socialization and nationalization were reversed. The state farms were broken into numerous cooperative farms that were to be operated by small groups of farmers usually belonging to the same family. These cooperatives could sell their produce in the market. Furthermore, in the name of “business development” the capitalist criteria of profitability, efficiency and performance-based incentives were introduced.
All these measures ensured that Cuba did not collapse in the aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. However, they also created the newer problems of malnutrition, unemployment, burgeoning inequality and prostitution. Although some of these measures were reversed in 2004 and even though Fidel tried to curtail the growth of self-employed sector, joint enterprises and foreign direct investment in his final years in office, the damage was already done. The dependence on Sugar was now replaced with that on tourism and remittances leading to increased instability in the Cuban economy due to the vagaries of global economy. Those working in tourism sector or those receiving remittances from abroad were benefitted disproportionately as compared to people in other sectors because the former got access to dollar and convertible peso. This widened the class divide in the Cuban society. The increasing trend of export of health personnel and teachers to countries such as Venezuela in return for commodities such as oil were initially helpful for the survival of Cuban economy. But in due course it led to shortage of doctors and teachers and deterioration of health care and educational services within Cuba which were the hallmark of post-revolution Cuba. Besides, the increasing dependency of Cuban economy on Venezuela is borne out by the fact that from 2003 onwards about 35-40 percent of Cuba’s exports go to Venezuela. Due to this dependency, the economic crisis in Venezuela directly impacts the Cuban economy.
After the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party in 2011, the self-employed sector has again begun to expand and the process of laying-off has also begun along with reduction in subsidies on basic necessities such as ration card. The private sale of housing has been sanctioned leading to growth of a real estate sector. The seventh congress held in 2016 and the eighth congress held in 2021 continued the policy of strengthening and expanding the private sector.
So, the reforms introduced in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union led to creating new fissures in the Cuban society. Apart from the old bourgeoisie, a new bourgeoisie and middle class has emerged which is openly striving for dismantling the socialist shell and bringing out naked capitalism. These are the people who have been protesting against the Cuban government in the wake of economic crisis in the time of a pandemic. Also, such proto-capitalist elements exist within the structure of the party and Cuban military that have come to control many private companies. With the old generation of revolutionary leadership either passing away or getting old, the people do not have the same faith on the new leadership in its ability to weather the storm. Thus, even while appreciating and supporting the magnificent anti-imperialist struggle waged by the Cuban people, one cannot overlook the tragic truth that the future of Cuban revolution does not look bright. Only a new kind of genuine revolutionary socialist movement in Cuba and in other Latin American countries could rekindle hope. The Cuban regime was a peculiar kind of regime characterized by anti-imperialism of the masses and leaders of the revolution, welfarist and ‘socialist-oriented’ policies of the revisionist state, and individual role of the revolutionaries that led the anti-imperialist revolution in Cuba. The energy of the masses and their deep hatred against imperialism provided the fuel to this peculiar state in weathering the challenges thrown by the imperialist blockade, disintegration of the Soviet bloc and creeping private capitalism within Cuba. However, such a situation cannot exist forever and the socialist shell of the Cuban state and political economy would end, though in a gradual fashion due to the internal contradictions of world capitalist system.
